1898 Sammy Marks Tickey 3p NGC Graded MS61

ULTRA RARE

Mintage of 215

Price: SOLD

The curious 1898 ZAR threepence coins exist only in gold. No silver pieces were ever issued. The dies used for striking were identical to those used for the commercial series, KM3, only bearing the date 1898. On page 329 of his standard reference, Brian Hern explains that the existence of these wonderful-looking coins remains a mystery infused with rumor. The ZAR Mint Act allowed for the “Coining of gold for private persons,” and somehow Pretoria entrepreneur and business genius Sammy Marks obtained use of the mint’s dies for the threepence and struck off “at least 215 pieces” in gold. Hern affirms that Marks used genuine mint dies dated 1898. No one seems to know the source of the gold or how the gold blanks were made or by whom, but the dies are now in the S.A. Mint museum. Many of the coins struck were used in jewelry and have later been subject to attempts to repair them. All are “very rare” today, Hern concludes. It would be hard to imagine a finer, more nearly perfectly preserved example of this mysterious coin than the presently offered specimen